Last summer during our DMI summerschool I worked with Vera Bekema, Liliana Bounegru, Andrea Fiore, Simon Marschall, Sabine Niederer, Bram Nijhof, Richard Rogers and Elena Tiis on a project titled ‘The Nationalities of Issues: Rights Types.’
We looked at the most significant rights types per country according to local Google results of the query for “rights” in the local languages. Graphic designer Vera Bekema and I visualized the results and the project was published in the Global Information Society Watch 2009.
We are now accepting applications for next year, due 1 April 2010. Please help spread the word by sharing the Call for Applications .pdf with friends and colleagues.
The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2010-2011 academic year. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in English at UvA in the heart of Amsterdam. Students become actively engaged in critical Internet culture, with an emphasis on new media theory and aesthetics, including theoretical materialist traditions and practical information visualization trends. Our permanent faculty are recognized experts in their fields, who are committed to their students. The program admits approximately forty students per year, classes are no larger than 20 and often smaller, and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:8.
For our new Contemporary Media Culture course colleague Laura van der Vlies and I designed a class and corresponding assignment on Media Art. One of the objectives was to get to know the object of study and its accompanying concepts through its art. We asked the students to look at the Sheep Market, We Feel Fine and the Misspelling generator –> M1ssp3ll1ng G4n3r4t0r and relate them to concepts such as The Database of Intentions and Crowdsourcing (and more).
While doing research for this class I encountered Ola’s One Million Giraffes project which aims to collect a million giraffes before 2011. Our students participated in this crowdsourcing art project with their user-generated content. Ola wrote a blog post about our student’s efforts: The University of Amsterdam learns about crowdsourcing. Hundreds of our first-year students at the University of Amsterdam eventually participated in the project and I am sending the last giraffes to Ola by snail mail for scanning and adding them to the database.
The following slides are part of the class on Media Art and are 1/2 in Dutch and 1/2 in English:
Op dinsdag 27 oktober van 14.00 uur tot 17.00 uur geef ik een cursus bloggen (beginners & gevorderden) voor studenten (aanmelding via de ASVA studentenunie). Een van de onderdelen van de cursus is: Waarom zou ik als student gaan bloggen? Hoe kan ik mijn blog gebruiken voor mijn scriptie of onderzoek? Hoe kan Twitter dienen als aanvulling op mijn blog en hoe koppel ik deze twee aan elkaar? Daarnaast zullen we gaan kijken naar de blogosphere als waardevolle informatiebron. Hoe vind ik de juiste bronnen en waar?
De rest van de cursus zal naar wens van de cursisten worden ingevuld. Tijdens de cursus is er ruimte is voor vragen over plugins, widgets, taggen, layout, design, schrijven, search engine optimization en meer. Heb je specifiek een onderwerp of vraag die je graag behandeld zou willen hebben? Laat deze vraag of opmerking dan achter in de comments of stuur een e-mail.
Hoewel het een praktische cursus is, kan ik de onderstaande literatuur aanraden ter voorbereiding:
Ik ben docent-promovendus Nieuwe Media aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. In 2006 was ik als MA student Nieuwe Media verantwoordelijk voor het opzetten van de Masters of Media blog. Begin 2008 ben ik cum laude afgestudeerd op een onderzoek naar de relatie tussen blog software en zoekmachines. Op dit moment geef ik voor de tweede keer het 3e jaars BA vak Digitale Praktijken met collega Esther Weltevrede waarbij bloggen op Metareporter centraal staat.
Tuesday the 22nd of September was a big day for both graduating New Media MA students and New Media studies itself. The first official graduation ceremony (which were previously held together with Film and Television studies in Mediastudies) marked the beginning of a new era for New Media within Mediastudies. New Media has grown in both quality and quantity over the past few years and this ceremony illustrated New Media as a mature field of study within Mediastudies.
The Masters themselves organized a graduation day that started with a symposium titled “AMSTERDAM – Creative and Critical Media Futures.” In the symposium Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie – Centre for Culture and Politics) and Floor van Spaendonck (director of Virtueel Platform) addressed the following questions: What is Amsterdam’s role as a center for creative practices and critical discourses pertaining to New Media? What roles can we envision it playing in the future?
Both Kluitenberg and van Spaendonck started their presentation with the importance of De Digitale Stad (the Amsterdam Digital City) within the history of new media in Amsterdam. It brought back memories of my own experiences with the Digital City in 1996 and how it was metaphorically and spatially organized as a city with a main square and where inhabitants would inhabit a house. Of course, the Post Office was my favorite part of the city, along with the chat area. For more information and research on the Digital City see Reinder Rustema’s collection in both English and Dutch.
After the symposium Prof. Frank Van Vree welcomed the audience and graduating MA’s as the Chair of the Department of Media Studies. Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff (MA New Media, 2009) addressed the audience with a small personal speech about being a New Media MA at the University of Amsterdam.
The diplomas were granted by thesis advisors Prof. Richard Rogers, Jan Simons and Edward Shanken (unfortunately Geert Lovink could not be there). After the diplomas there were drinks, a buffet and a party which marked the end of the graduation day.
The first New Media MA Graduation Day was a big success. Thank you organizers, and congratulations MA students, you are now officially Masters of Media!
Recent Comments